VegNews Thanksgiving Feast 2011!

The Chefs: Hilary, Colleen, Jen, Elizabeth, Lyndsay, and Native Foods

The Menu: A feast fit for a voraciously hungry staff: a vegan Wellington and mushroom gravy from Native Foods, Elizabeth's mashed potatoes, Colleen's brussels sprouts and signature winter salad, Lyndsay's biscuits, nog, cider, and three kinds of pie from Sidesaddle Kitchen!

The Goods: It's not easy to write this right now. My intelligence has plummeted since lunch due to a rush of blood to my digestive system. The VegNews Thanksgiving feast was truly scrumptious this year, tickling my tastebuds with every seasonal flavor imaginable and subsequently rendering me immobile. Our talented staff pulled together an array of amazing holiday dishes—from Colleen's winter salad with spiced pecans, sliced apples, and tangy dressing to Lyndsay's perfectly flaky, buttery biscuits. Behold the spread.

And why didn't anybody ever tell me that the Native Foods vegan Wellington is life-changing? Oh wait, they did, and they were right. Come Thursday, I'm going to be consulting the VegNews Holiday Cookbook to dazzle anyone (mostly myself) with all of the mouthwatering Thanksgiving recipes contained therein. Pumpkin Cake with Vanilla Buttercream and Roasted Garlic Mashed Potatoes are just the beginning. Think your recipes will impress us? Enter the first-ever VegNews Holiday Cookie Contest now!  

Roasted Stuffed Squash

The Chef: Joni

The Menu: Roasted acorn squash baked with a wild rice & apple stuffing

The Dish: If this dish looks familiar to you, it’s because I got the idea from this week’s Recipe Club. If you don’t recognize it, it’s probably because it’s a not-so-pretty (yet totally delicious!) leftover from the Recipe Club photoshoot my boyfriend and I held over the weekend. If it’s because you haven’t yet signed up for the Recipe Club, you totally should! I swear, while this photo doesn’t do it justice, this meal would make for a gorgeous Thanksgiving centerpiece. If you need more Thanksgiving recipe ideas to complete your menu, check out these 12 mashed potato recipes or whip up some Stuffed Maple Tofu. Or, be smart and just head to one of these amazing cruelty-free Thanksgiving events and call it a day!

Onion Soup, Mashed Potatoes

The Chef: Chas

The Menu: A rich, flavorful onion soup of kale, seasoned tofu squares, carrot, celery, kidney beans, garlic, thyme, and lots of savory, crisp onion paired with a complementary comfort food classic, mashed potatoes and gravy. Chas took a samosa-filling inspired take on this standard side by adding peas, almond milk, veggie broth, and seasoning, and literally took a page from American Vegan Kitchen for the gravy recipe. Despite our assertion that a carb-filled meal was exactly what we always want, Chas also busted our one of his signature salads tossed with avocado dressing.

The Goods: Oh yes, this meal was a big, heaping helping of awesome. If there's one thing that the VN staff can rally around it's vegan mashed potatoes and gravy. The only thing more exciting than indulging in this satisfying fare is finishing off our meal with dessert from Sticky Fingers. During a weekend trip to Washington, DC, VN Art Director Sutton Long visited the capital city bakery and was gifted a box of dairy-free desserts by Sticky Fingers' Manager Ben Adams. Lets just say we're not complaining about any of it.

Savory Medallions, Mashed Potatoes

The Chef: Lyndsay

The Menu: A classic meal of savory seitan medallions doused in barbecue sauce, mashed potatoes with tons of vegan margarine, salad, and biscuits. Yes, the medallions are another of Frankie's fantastic creations, and yes, we thoroughly enjoyed them. In most parts of the country, this meal would likely be called "dinner," which is just how we like our lunches: hearty.

The Goods: It's a bittersweet day here at the VNHQ. Our publishers have returned from their sojourn in New York City, and we're thrilled to have them back. Sadly, today is Ms. Kristen's last day, and we'll certainly miss her. Other than the comings and goings, we're hard at work on our 10th anniversary issue! Highly exciting stuff. Hope everyone had a great weekend and wonderful start to the week!

Toodaloo Tofu and Vegan Mashed Potatoes

The Chef: Chas

The Menu: An incredible meal of breaded tofu, mashed potatoes with mushroom gravy, and a super salad. Yes, this was Chas' best work to date. The tofu was perfectly cooked and flavored, the mashed potatoes had in incredible consistency, and we would have consumed a vat of the mushroom gravy.

The Goods: Very sadly, this was also our last Chas meal for a while, as our guest has returned home to Florida. We, collectively, sigh. Going back to fending for ourselves in the kitchen and making our own coffee (not to mention sharing our own stories at lunch, which are almost certainly less entertaining than Chas') is a little bit of a downer. But! Thankfully, there's talk of Chas returning in May, for which we are basically counting the days.

Shepherd's Pie

The Chef: Lyndsay

The Menu: A savory shepherd's pie, made with seasoned Match Meats, carrots, celery, and a colorful mashed potato topping. Alongside, the signature VN salad (aka mixed greens, red cabbage, and carrots) was delicious with its vegan Thousand Island dressing.

The Goods: It's Friday, and we are appropriately fried. Today's meal was definitely of the "inspired by what's left in the kitchen at the end of the week" variety, and Lyndsay rose nobly to the challenge. Next week, however, we'll be making recipes out of Alicia Silverstone's new book, The Kind Diet. Maybe you've seen the lovely lady gracing our current cover. If not, you might want to go ahead and check out our interview with her! Be sure to check back next week for our kind culinary adventures, and to win yourself a copy of the book, which we'll be giving away each day!

Cookbook Week: Pierogi with Fried Onions

The Chef: Sara

The Menu: A perfect plate of pert pierogi! These cute little dumplings were stuffed with mashed potatoes and fried onions, and they were just about as tasty as can be. Sara's spinach side salad was a stupendous supplement to the savory main.

The Goods: Whoa! Did you know that the holidays are heavily breathing their candy-cane breath down our necks? Yeah, they are. What with all the frenzied gift purchasing, it's nice to be able to give something away for free every day. Here at the VNHQ, we've so far had a bunch of great lunches from 1,000 Vegan Recipes and today's was no exception. Congratulations to yesterday's giveaway winner, Josiane! Josiane, send us an email, and we'll send your copy of the book right out.

Now, today we had the pleasure of dining with Ms. Laura Beck. This lovely lady just returned from a whirlwind trip to NYC and Chicago, and still found time to spoil us with treats. She brought a box of S'mores Bars by Sweet Fritsy, and, um, wow. Incredible. Gooey marshmallow layer on rich fudge layer, topped with graham cracker crumbs and chocolate chips. We are in love. Here's our new sweetie:
Now that you've met our latest obsession, for today's copy of 1,000 Vegan Recipes, tell us in the comments: What are you totally in love with right now?

Hot Pink Soup!

The Chefs: Abby and Susy

The Menu: One of the most colorful ways of using Thanksgiving leftovers we've ever seen! Though the photo doesn't quite do it justice, this soup—which was an amalgamation of mashed potatoes, sweet potatoes, and roasted root vegetables—was hot pink in real life, thanks to the roasted beets it contained. Susy (aka Elizabeth's mom) brought the soup makings, some stuffing, and a highly delicious cranberry-Cabernet sauce from the Castoria family Thanksgiving. Abby whipped up her signature biscuits and a big, beautiful salad.

The Goods: Today we had the pleasure of Susy's company and celebrated the birth of our beloved Frankie. OK, so technically Frankie's birthday isn't until tomorrow, but she has celebration plans that don't involve coming into the office, so we took the opportunity to whoop it up with her today. Fun ladies and great eats? We like that.

Pre-Thanksgiving Feast

The Chefs: Everyone! And Native Foods and Babycakes NYC

The Menu: Thanksgiving! We went all-out today with an amazing holiday spread. First of all, let's talk about the Native Foods' Wellington. Holy heck. This thing is puff pastry wrapped around delicious layers of seitan, kale, sweet potatoes, and portabello mushrooms, caramelized onions, and some magic. OK, OK, it was mostly magic. Seriously, we could eat this every day. Moving on from the Wellington's majesty, we enjoyed perfectly garlicky mashed potatoes made by Liz, which we doused in a cashew gravy that Elizabeth whipped up. Abby made her signature chive biscuits, and Colleen roasted Brussels sprouts to perfection and made her traditional Thanksgiving salad with candied pecans, dried cranberries, sliced apples, and a homemade balsamic vinaigrette. Oh, and then we had dessert. Apple-crumb cake from Babycakes NYC? We'll let this photo speak for itself:

The Goods: This may well be the most epic lunch ever eaten at the VNHQ. Easily one of the most delectable meals we've had, this pre-Thanksgiving smorgasbord was a wonderful treat for our hard-working staff, and might just have us in fighting shape for the actual T-Day. ("T" is for "Thanks for not eating turkey," obviously.) We'll be back with one more post this week, and then it's off to our respective holiday celebrations/mashed potato-induced comas.

Mashed Potatoes, etc.

The Chef: Liz

The Menu: As you can clearly see, we enjoyed hearty helpings of super-good, super-garlicky mashed potatoes today. Yes, there are other items on the plate, but do any of them really stand out when served next to mashed potatoes? No. OK, to be fair, Liz made a really lovely salad, and attempted a new fusion cuisine that involved making calzones with whole-wheat tortillas instead of pizza dough. She filled the crispy shells with a yummy mixture of marinara, broccoli, and cashews.

The Goods: We are deep in the depths of Trader Joe's Maple Leaf cookies here at the VNHQ, so this savory meal was just the thing to break us out of our sugary routine. Also, it's always a good time for mashed potatoes. Maybe some of us are already looking forward to Thanksgiving!

Beefless Stew and Mashed Potatoes

The Chef: Elizabeth

The Menu: A savory beef stew—except, of course, without the beef. Instead, Elizabeth used yet another item from our Gardein stash, this time the Beefless Tips. Red wine, carrots, onions, garlic, thyme, and tomatoes made a homey sauce for the tips, and the whole shebang was served over mashed potatoes. A side salad with romaine, tomatoes, chopped zucchini, and yellow squash added some color to the plate.

The Goods: Can you tell that it's cold here at the VNHQ? The thermometer says it's 65 degrees, but it definitely feels closer to 45 with the thick blanket of fog in which we've been shrouded all morning. On days like today, the only thing to do is stew! We got to share the meal with Matt Flanzer, who's one of our contributors. Guests make any meal more fun, and today's was no exception!

Ribs! Rawr!

The Chef: Colleen

The Menu: Really, really, really good ribs. As you know, we love ribs (meatless, as if we even need to say so) here at the VNHQ. Today's were no exception, drenched in barbecue sauce and served alongside mashed sweet potatoes with cumin and cinnamon. Of course, no meal would be complete without a scrumptious salad, and Colleen dressed today's romaine-and-carrot combo with a garlicky homemade vinaigrette.

The Goods: We are all freaking beside ourselves with anticipation as rumor has it that our May+June issue might be arriving in the office today. Eeek! Yes, when we're excited we revert to using monosyllabic exclamations like rawr! and eeek!, what of it?

BBQ, We Love You!

The Chefs: Melissa and Frankie

The Menu: Ribs! Barbecue-sauce-smothered ribs, to be exact. If there's anything yummier than Frankie's famous falsie ribs (which of course means that they are deliciously meat-free), it's those very same ribs absolutely doused with her signature barbecue sauce. Um, yum. Melissa whipped up some of the most wonderful mashed potatoes ever. She imbued them with a certain something—OK, fine, we'll tell you, it's Sheese—which made them light, fluffy, and fantastically flavorful. To finish off the hearty meal, Melissa also made a lovely mixed-greens salad with cherry tomatoes, carrots, and Chipotle Pistachios. Fancy, you say? That's just how we like our salads—and pants.

The Goods: Maybe we hammered out the final details for our May+June cover yesterday. Maybe we're abso-freakin-lutely beside ourselves with glee about it. And maybe, just maybe, today's meal, which was completely delicious in its own right, felt even more celebratory knowing all the midnight oil that got burned last night. On days after long work-nights, it's always a good idea to eat something filling, flavorful, and smothered in barbecue sauce. Speaking of sauce, we'll be seeing all the Bay Areans at SF Vegan Drinks tomorrow, right?

Greens Galore

The Chef: Elizabeth

The Menu: Today brings you yet another installment of the ongoing "What Do We Have in the Kitchen" challenge. Thankfully, when the fridge is packed with lovely romaine lettuce, plump tomatoes, red onion, and Sunergia Soy Feta, the salad practically makes itself. Bright rainbow Swiss chard just needed to be chopped and lightly tossed in a hot wok with big chunks of garlic, and a pile of hearty red potatoes got a cheesy infusion when Elizabeth mashed them with an amount of Garlic-Herb Sheese that will remain classified.

The Goods: Do we leave for Expo West tomorrow? Yes. Does that mean that things around the office are just about bat-sh*t crazy right now? Yes. We don't want to sound weird, but cheesy mashed potatoes are just about as close as you can come to sanity at times like these, and we happily devoured them today.

Delicious Delivery

The Chef: Dharma's

The Menu: A freakin' smorgasbord of awesome vegan yumminess from one of our favorite restaurants! Starting from 12 o'clock and moving clockwise, we've got a soup, salad, and rice combination, then the Dan Dan Noodles—cooked noodles in a peanut-sesame sauce with fresh cucumber, tofu, and green onions—then the BBQ Tofu-de-Beast, which looked way more beautiful than beastly with its side servings of mashed potatoes, gravy, and vegetables. Finally, over on the left side you see the Tofu Rancheros, which featured ice-cream-scoop-sized dollops of guacamole, fresh salsa, tofu scramble, and black beans, all on a corn tortilla. Um, yum.

The Goods: Yes, it's an awesome day when your prestigious publishers have an early morning meeting in Santa Cruz and are nice enough to pick up lunch for everyone before coming back to the office. Joseph and Colleen are, without a doubt, our favorite delivery people! Considering the popularity of our cover contest over on VegNews.com, here's another challenge for you: can you match the dish to the VN staffer? Colleen was able to guess who had ordered each dish without any hints at all—but since you don't have the benefit of working with all of us every day, we'll help you out. OK, there are four dishes visible, and six staffer options (Aurelia, Colleen, Elizabeth, Lyndsay, Melissa, and Stacy—Joseph was too full from breakfast to eat lunch!). Elizabeth and Stacy got the same dish, as did Aurelia and Lyndsay. Let's see how well you know your VegNews-ers! The first person to correctly match all the diners with their dishes will receive a Hawaiian Ruby Guava gift set! Ready? Go!

Simple Stir-Fry

The Chef: Joseph

The Menu: A mostly Asian-food-inspired lunch, with one notable Irish twist. Joseph cooked up a savory blend of curried amaranth and red quinoa, over which he served a very deliciously garlicky stir-fry of snap peas, broccoli, carrots, bell peppers, water chestnuts, and tofu. It's always a treat to get vegetable gyoza, and today's dumplings had a lovely gingery bite. Finally, our plates were completed with some very colorful mashed potatoes.

The Goods: Huzzah! Mark your calendars! Today was officially the first day of 2009 that found us dining al fresco. The added sunshine certainly boosted our spirits—we hear that's one of the side effects of absorping vitamin D. Since we're in such good moods, a little treat seems in order. A number of you guys have commented that you'd like to see recipes on this here blog, and while the brutal truth is that we very rarely use recipes to create our lunches, we also don't want to leave you hanging. So, please enjoy our Simple Evening Pasta recipe, which makes such a lovely meal that it graces the cover of our current issue!

Atomic Potatoes, Fiendishly Good Tofu

The Chef: Lyndsay

The Menu: Breaded tofu, cheesy mashed potatoes, and a big green salad filled our plates today. Ms. Lyndsay marinated her 'fu before bathing it in breading and frying it up, and she applied her patented chopping method to a nice, big head of romaine for the salad. The potatoes, as you can see, came out a very vibrant orange, but more on that later.

The Goods: Okay, it's later. So, as you may already know the VN crew attended the San Francisco Green Festival over the weekend. The Green Festivals are great opportunities for us to not only get the word out about VegNews, but also to get the scoop on new products, meet new people, and so forth. One of the new products we discovered was an instant mashed potato mix from Road's End Organics, flavored with their signature Chreese. The product is so new, in fact, that they weren't quite able to perfect the amount of orange, though we have it on good authority that once the insta-taters hit the shelves, the effect will be more mashed potato, less sweet potato.

Homey Potatoes

The Chef: Jenny

The Menu: An almost-Thanksgiving spread of fluffy, hearty mashed potatoes with country gravy, roasted acorn squash, and fresh, steamed broccoli with spices. Yes, Ms. Jenny actually made country gravy from scratch just for this meal. Yes, it was savory and delicious and we love her.

The Goods: Today's comfort food couldn't have come at a better time, since today is our editorial deadline, we're gearing up for the unbe-freakin'-lieveable relaunch of vegnews.com, oh, and maybe this weekend we have a little party to throw and a World Veg Festival Weekend to celebrate. Of course, it would be difficult to say that there is ever a bad time for Thanksgiving-inspired lunches, but today's homey meal was especially appreciated.

Farewell (Tofu) Fingers

The Chef: Lisa

The Menu: A trio of Lisa's signature dishes. First off, her timeless tofu fingers provided a deliciously crunchy main course, then her extra-garlicky mashed potatoes with basil were a scrumptious side, and finally her special blended garlic-mustard vinaigrette dressed a simple spinach salad.

The Goods: Today was Lisa's last day as a chef at VN! Her internship is coming to a close, and although she isn't officially leaving us until Friday, today was her farewell to the office kitchen. We were all thrilled that she chose to go out in high (read: garlicky!) style, and we'll certainly miss her trusty tofu fingers.

Les Doigts Du Tofu

The Chef: Lisa

The Menu: Super-garlicky mashed potatoes with fresh parsley, Lisa's signature breaded tofu fingers, and a salad of romaine lettuce, shredded zucchini, tomatoes, carrots, and knock-your-socks-off dressing. The parsley gave the potatoes a superb lemony flavor and the fingers were just perfectly crunchy. Sound good? Well, it was. There was not so much as a molecule left over when we were through with lunch today, and that's just how we like lunch here at the VNHQ. No, there wasn't anything particularly French about the meal, but the chance to say "tofu fingers" in another language is not one that should be missed.

The Goods: Today, the goods are two part. One: Did you notice the white plate? We recently received a comment suggesting that the blue plates we normally use weren't doing our delicious food justice, and that we might switch to a white serving dish. Always eager to improve, we made the change. So, what's the verdict? Do you like the white plate? Did you love the blue? Could you care less so long as the plates are full of delicious vegan food?

Two: We had the pleasure of dining with Lori Patotzka, who has been our Calendar Editor and a long-time friend and supporter of VegNews. She's moving on to other projects, and it was a treat to get to see her for lunch and wish her well in person. Here's a bittersweet photo of Lori and the VN team during today's blustery lunch hour: